Violence... The story so far

Terrorism involves the deliberate killing and injuring of randomly selected noncombatants for political or economic ends. It seeks to promote a political outcome by spreading terror and demoralization throughout a population. It is immoral and ultimately self-defeating. We condemn it and we urge that the parties coordinate their security efforts to eliminate it.

Mitchell Report

Mitchell was a bit disingenuous; terror does succeed on occasion. The Zionists used terror to edge Britain out of Palestine; the Zionists used terror to displace Palestinians from their homeland; terror was also successful in overturning Apartheid in South Africa. There are other examples.

We urge you to:

• research our terror pages and any other sites you can find;
• download a full gamut of pages that you might need in a hurry if you are involved in a terror attack;
• print out those pages, bind them alphabetically by subject, and store them in a dry, safe, and accessible place.

We advise the foregoing in case the Internet goes down and/or the power goes off. You will still have information handy. Many of our pages have links for your further convenience.


As long as Terrorism remains a collective means for conflict resolution, there can be no peace on earth. By declarations from Osama bin Laden, al Qa'ida, and other terrorist groups, jihads (religious wars, technically struggles), have been declared upon us and indeed upon all free peoples.

Definitions we go by:

• Terror, nouna person thing or event that causes intense fear; the quality of causing dread.
• Terrorism, nounuse of terror and violence to intimidate or subjugate, especially as a political weapon or policy.
• Terrorist, nouna person who practices or favors terrorism.
• Terroristic, adjectivecharacterized by or practicing terrorism.
• Terrorize, transitive verbto practice terrorism.

All five of these terms are blind to:

• justice, legality, fairness;
• conditions such as ethnicity, wealth, gender;
• time and historical era whether ours or another.

We have all seen today's terrorist become tomorrow's hero.

Terror goes by different names: Urban Guerillas, activists, and militants are common terms used by correspondents understandably wanting to preserve their contacts--and lives for that matter.

Humans are political animals. Terrorism often seems to arise in response to political /economic / social conditions that are, or perceived to be, oppressive or even terroristic in their own right. Terrorism seems to be most prevalent in states with well-developed middle classes; it is relatively rare in totalitarian states and advanced democracies consciously working toward stamping out terrorism. See Muslim Mind, Making of a Terrorist, Authoritarian and Religion and Violence.

And terror has a strong religious overtone.

Terror in the Name of God by Jessica Stern is a must read by any scholar of terrorism. Indeed it is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of humanity. Ms Stern provides deep insights into why Judaism, Christianity and Islam spawn so much violence. Ms Stern is not an armchair pundit; she traveled extensively to interview terrorists herself on their own home grounds. By her own admission, she became a new person from the experience. Her findings are at once sobering (pervasiveness of the problem) and encouraging (with understanding of a problem can come control.)

After terror, there is another word to keep in mind, propaganda. Look no further than the world's newspapers and television to see propaganda in action. Propaganda has a formal definition that we use on this site:

Propaganda, nounany systematic, widespread, or deliberate indoctrination or plan for such indoctrination.

Like terror, propaganda is used by people adhering to almost any value, under any condition, and in any era.

We see propaganda in action when separate commentators or historians report two very different versions of an event, for example, one reports it as heroic, the other as terroristic. There are strong national, ethnic, and religious biases in today's world news reports. In many cases the reporters are unaware of their own biases.

It is sometimes hard to know what is propaganda and what is not. It depends on one's perspective. Consider for example, what Hizbullah has to say


Readers logically agree or disagree, depending on whose history they choose to ignore or revise in mind. This raises a key point. Propaganda is only as effective as the receiver chooses it to be, whether or not s/he is aware of that fact.

The Zionists did indeed displace people in Palestine and banished them to refugee camps. See Zionism for more on this. Since the US has supported Israel for several decades, there is in the Palestinian mind reason to believe that America is fostering Zionism and continued bloodshed. Whether we like it or not, we must deal with that mindset, not just in Palestine, but the whole of Islam.

We cannot say whether Ariel Sharon is a card carrying Zionist. But in expanding settlements, he acted like one. On that very matter the Palestinians have a point. It is not that Israel was not warned about what would happen if they displaced the Palestinians. See The Iron Wall for the literal substance and warning from one of their own.


Links to Terrorism Websites
Air travel and Security
Counter Terror Information
Democracy, Securty and Hustice -- Yale University
Nuclear Terror

Lest we Forget:
Common Dreams News Center